Many hurt in cops-Left Front protesters’ clash
A number of police personnel and Left protesters were injured on Monday as the security forces used tear gas and baton charges on thousands of belligerent activists who broke barricades here and neighbouring Howrah during a protest march to the secretariat.
Several areas in Kolkata and Howrah district turned into battlefields as the Left activists used sticks and bamboo poles to break guard walls and barricades and rained bricks and stones on police and the Rapid Action Force deployed in strength to quell the "March to Nabanna" organised by 11 Left peasant bodies.
The agitation was to press for their 18-point charter of demand including measures to stop farmers' distress and rising unemployment in the state. While Nabanna was virtually converted into a fortress with all entry points blocked and barricaded, and gates closed, sand bunkers, barricades and guard-walls were put up in the approach roads, many of which were closed to traffic.
However, there was high drama even before the scheduled start of the march, as a number of Left Front lawmakers including legislature party leader Sujan Chakraborty reached Nabanna around noon and shouted slogans at its gate, demanding they be allowed in.
But they were detained and taken to the Shibpur police station.
“Twenty of our MLAs reached the gate of Nabanna to protest against the issues of unemployment, farmers' distress and other issues. But police did not let us in. They forcefully stopped us and later put us in police vans. They are not disclosing whether we are in police custody or not," Chakraborty told IANS.
"The Chief Minister has fled from the city. Is she not bothered about the plight of the farmers here? She has turned the state into a prison," he added. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is in Birbhum district to attend an administrative meeting.
At 1 p.m., the Left workers from near and far flung districts as also the city gathered in large numbers at five points here and in Howrah - Rani Rashmoni Avenue, PTS (Race Course), Hastings, Howrah rail museum and Santragachi railway station - and tried to march to the state secretariat, but came up against stiff resistance from the heavilyarmed police.
Stopped, the agitators sat on the road and demonstrated and then broke the barriers to continue the march.
Barricades came down at Mayo Road and Shibpur and other points, as some of the protestors were seen battling police and countering batons with stones and bricks.
Police, using water canons and and lobbing tear gas shells, managed to temporarily disperse the Left workers, but they soon regrouped and confronted police again, shouting "Inquilab Zindabad" and holding aloft the red flags.
Some of them even snatched the sticks from baton charging police personnel, and again dismantled barricades.
The areas, particularly Mayo Road, resembled war zones, with both protestors and the police sustaining injuries, and blood oozed from their wounds.